We started last year with one hive and it died at this time of year. This year we started with 2 hives one Styrofoam and the other wooden. The Styrofoam one did excellent all year and the wooden one did not produce any honey. Now both hives have died. We had a feeling about the wooden one but both are confusing us. What are we doing wrong?
Need a bit more info to diagnose. Did you feed them? Could they have starved in a dearth? Been robbed out of food? Did you do mite counts? Were there a bunch of dead bees out front from a pesticide kill? Any evidence of fungus, viruses, bacterial disease? Did they go queenless and you not catch it?
What do you think killed them?
Tons of questions along with the above questions. And you will not get honey from a first year hive started from a package. I am assuming that they were packages. Tell us more about the history of the hives this year.
Assuming they didn't starve, the most common cause of losses in recent years is Varroa.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm#varroa (http://www.bushfarms.com/beespests.htm#varroa)